Uberall Report – Digital Readiness of Location-based Brands

multi-location brands

Local search platform Uberall has released an interesting new research report. The new study measures how well-honed the digital marketing chops are of multi-location businesses. The short answer is that many businesses are not taking full advantage of available opportunities to optimize their local digital presence.

According to Uberall, the study surveyed more than 450 businesses worldwide and 244 businesses in North America. Uberall measured the companies’ digital maturity along the customer journey. This includes everything from discovery, to purchase, to loyalty. Uberall released the report, entitled “Benchmark for Local Digital Marketing”, last week.

“The average local digital marketing maturity score in North America is 53 out of 100, leaving ample opportunity for improvement,” Uberall said, in summarizing the report’s findings. “The survey revealed that while the majority of North American multi-location businesses have the basics covered like local business directories (83%) and local social pages (76%), most are not fully leveraging these tools for online discovery, engagement, and conversion.”

In the Consideration Set

We asked Uberall to comment on the report’s findings. We also asked Uberall to help us understand how to interpret the report’s findings.

“When a buyer has an Instagram desire or a ‘need it now’ dilemma, they often turn to their smartphone to search for nearby businesses that can help,” Uberall Founder & CEO Florian Hubner told Localogy Insider.

“Being in the consideration set and providing the right level of information to establish trust and credibility at that moment is critical. The challenge, however, is that the rules are constantly changing. And businesses must adapt to maintain a competitive edge. Our latest report reveals countless untapped opportunities for businesses to gain an advantage.” 

Alyssa Trenkamp, Uberall’s Vice President of Brand Marketing & Communication, echoed this. She stated that many companies are taking the most obvious measures, but are overlooking some fairly easy opportunities to shine.

“Our report found that while most multi-location businesses have the basics covered, such as local business directories and local social pages, there’s plenty of room for improvement,” she said.

“In fact, when it comes to being chosen, we found that 71% don’t actively manage their chat. And 42% don’t offer an interactive way to locate their stores, like a map or filters. [Also, in] looking at brands’ efforts to drive their customers’ loyalty, 72% don’t respond to reviews frequently enough and 71% don’t offer a customer referral program.”

Untapped Opportunities

“While most multi-location businesses understand the importance of digital marketing, this new research reveals untapped opportunity at the local level,” CEO Hubner added. “Many businesses spend heavily on digital marketing campaigns and broad brand awareness. But [they] under-resource on local digital marketing to influence nearby customers in their moment of need. However, in the current economic climate, gaining an edge is more important than ever. A solid local digital marketing strategy is key to achieving that.”

In October, before the report was released, Localogy hosted an Uberall webinar previewing some of the research findings. You can view a replay of the webinar here.

YouTube player

Berlin-based Uberal was founded in 2013. The company currently has more than 400 employees and services more than 1,850 multi-location businesses across 170 countries. Its core platform is called Uberall CoreX. The company describes CoreX as a “hybrid customer experience platform, [which] powers the entire customer journey from online discovery, to store visit, to the recommendation and repeat purchase.”

 

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